Victim ‘slit his own throat’

But accused admits stabbing mental patient

A YOUNG man accused of murder told police he stabbed his neighbour twice in the chest during a struggle and then watched him slit his own throat.

Samuel Austin Wells has pleaded not guilty to murder claiming he only stabbed David McLelland in self defence after he “tried to f***ing stab me”.

The then 21-year-old said there was “blood everywhere, everywhere man” in an interview with police that was played in the Cairns Supreme Court.

Mr Wells initially told police he found Mr McLelland on the ground in the kitchen of his Cooktown home on November 3 last year and tried to lift him up and also give him CPR. “I was in that state of shock,” Mr Wells said.

Mr Well was asked if he had anything to do with Mr McLelland’s death, to which he answered: “I did not ... too much blood for me.”

However Mr Wells later said Mr McLelland pulled a knife on him.

“He’s got a mental illness,” Mr Well said.

He told police the pair began to struggle before he (Mr Wells) “just grabbed the knife” and stabbed Mr McLelland twice in the chest when he “kept coming”.

“He fell over,” Mr Wells told police. “He just jumped up ... slit his throat. He jumped up and stabbed himself.”

Police found schizophrenic pensioner Mr McLelland lying face down in a pool of blood in his Hargarty St home.

Neighbours initially discovered Mr McLelland before calling police.

Sergeant Kenneth White said he noticed a man “lying face down in the kitchen area”.

“There was a fairly large pool of blood underneath him,” Sgt White said.

The court heard that Mr McLelland had allegedly told a neighbour that a young man down the street “had a knife or had showed him a knife that he was saving or wanted to hurt someone on the street with”.

Dr Aniket Bansod, who was the staff specialist psychiatrist at Cairns Base Hospital, told the court that Mr McLelland had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia about 20 years ago and had been on fortnightly injections.

The trial continues.